Deportations Pushing Israeli Arabs to Join Protests

When Fatima Alayan came home a few days ago, she found her 9-year-old son, Hamed, watching Israeli news reports about the mass deportation of 415 Palestinians to southern Lebanon.

"Mom, who are we, Fatah or Hamas?" her son asked, referring to the the mainstream faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Islamic fundamentalist group.

"We're neither," his mother answered.

But for many of the 760,000 Arabs in Israel, the daily news reports showing Palestinians stranded in snow-covered tents in southern Lebanon have ended neutrality. Many Israeli Arabs now support, for the first time, a series of protests inside Israel.

"The vigor and determination of the protests by Israeli Arabs in recent days is unprecedented," said Dr. Elie Rekhkess, a specialist on Israeli Arabs at the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University. "The mass deportation touched on one of the most sensitive issues for any Palestinian -- the fear, real or imagined, of being deported." Arabs Protest in Parliament

Arab members of the Israeli Parliament have delivered blistering speeches against the deportation, including a tirade by one deputy, Tawfik Ziyad, that led to his suspension for the next five sessions. And another Arab deputy, Hashem Mahameed, in a speech in the Gaza Strip, appeared to call for an increased use of force against the Israeli authorities.

"As long as the occupation continues, so will our struggle, and not by stones alone," he said. "The Palestinian people must fight occupation by any means."

Attorney General Yossef Harish has ordered the police to investigate the Mr. Mahameed for possible violations of the anti-terrorism law.

But the response to the deportations has not been limited to verbal condemnations.

Groups of Israeli Arabs have organized demonstrations outside the Prime Minister's office to protest the deportation, and a convoy of Israeli Arabs was turned back at the Israeli-declared "security zone" when they tried to deliver food and medicine to the exiled Palestinians. Israeli Arabs also organized a one-day strike in protest. Day of Fasting Planned

Arab leaders are planning to declare a day of fast in solidarity with the deportees and to start a hunger strike near the Prime Minister's office.

"If the unrest spreads," an editorial in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said today, "it could cause serious damage to the delicate relations between Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens. It is in our interest to calm the atmosphere."

Israeli Arabs, who often speak Hebrew and study and work with Jewish colleagues, say that if this deportation succeeds, it could lead to further mass deportations that might eventually touch them.

"This event is different from the uprising," said Rana Othman, a 17-year-old high school student. "If today they expel 400 people, tomorrow it will be 500 and the next day 600. It will be the beginning of the transfer of all of the Palestinians out of the country." Rightists Want Mass Ousters

One far-right political party, Moledet, bases its platform on the mass deportation, or what it calls transfer, of Arabs out of Israel and the occupied territories. But with only three parliamentary seats it has little effect.

What stunned Israeli Arabs was that the three leftist parties that make up Meretz, which many Arabs backed in the elections and which holds 12 parliamentary seats, also signed on to the deportation order.

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"The leftist Israeli parties always presented themselves as supporting human rights," Dr. Adnan Jabarah said. "These were the parties we thought we could talk to, but when they backed the mass deportation, we felt betrayed."

Israeli Arabs also contend that the Israeli state, which they believe disregarded the rule of law to carry out the expulsions, applies a double standard to terrorist activities.

"If the Government wants to expel those involved in terrorism, then why don't they send the foreign-born members of Jewish extremist groups back to their countries of origin?" said a Palestinian professor, who asked to remain unidentified. "Jewish terrorists who plant bombs and shoot Arabs are tolerated, and Arab terrorists are not."

The decision by many Israeli Arabs, who carry Israeli passports and have most of the rights of citizenship, to enter the foray worries Israeli officials, who fear that the violence in the occupied territories could spread to inside Israel's own borders.

Israeli Arabs have largely refrained from taking part in violent attacks against Jews, although three Israeli Arabs were sentenced to life imprisonment for killing three soldiers in an army camp in February. The Palestinians were members of the Islamic Movement, according to officials.

The status of Israeli Arabs, neither full members of the Jewish state nor part of those suffering under Israeli occupation, force most to strike a careful balance. While they may express sympathy for their Palestinian brethren in the uprising, they must also profess loyalty to the country.

But the deportation, Israeli Arabs say, is making this stance more difficult.

"We were and still are faithful sons of the state," Mr. Ziyad said. "I struggle at the risk of my life, and with all my strength, for sane and humane positions in the face of rising nationalism and fundamentalism, unquestionable products of despair."

Perhaps most disturbing to Israeli leaders is the role the fundamentalist organizations took in organizing the recent protests.

After the demonstrations outside the Prime Minister's office, and the abortive attempt to carry food through the security zone to the deportees, the protesters performed Muslim prayers.

Arab candidates in the June local elections, recognizing the increasing pull of the Islamic groups, sought the endorsement of fundamentalist parties and often used Islamic symbols in their campaign posters. -------------------- U.N. Chief Meets on Exiles

GENEVA, Dec. 30 (Special to The New York Times) -- After meeting here with Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the United Nations Secretary General said today that Israel should place the deported Palestinians in internment camps and prosecute in Israeli courts those it thinks guilty of breaking Israeli law.

The French Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, who met with Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Mr. Arafat today, said France had suggested that the United Nations peacekeeping force deployed in southern Lebanon should take care of the deportees until they can return home or find a more permanent place to live.

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A version of this article appears in print on December 31, 1992, on Page A00003 of the National edition with the headline: Deportations Pushing Israeli Arabs to Join Protests. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe